


Blackbird Fly

by Zivitz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Polis, Season/Series 03, Sharing a Bed, Stolen Moments, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29298930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zivitz/pseuds/Zivitz
Summary: Abby and Marcus wait for their audience with the Commander.
Relationships: Abby Griffin/Marcus Kane
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Blackbird Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Blackbird singing in the dead of night  
> Take these broken wings and learn to fly  
> All your life  
> You were only waiting for this moment to arise

They were shown to a room high in the tower, and told to wait for the Commander’s summons. Abby paced while Marcus inspected every item he could lay his hands on, marvelling at the civilization the Grounders had managed to rebuild and maintain over the last hundred years. The ingenuity, the complexity, the sheer tenacity it took- it was more than anything he could have imagined. If he’d ever imagined a populated Earth.

When he was done, he lay on the bed draped with furs and watched her as she paced. 

“You’re making me dizzy. Come sit down.”

Abby stopped and turned, seeing him stretched out on the bed with his hands folded on his chest and legs crossed at the ankles. “How can you be so relaxed?”

Marcus closed his eyes and smiled. “Practice. You learn early on in the Guard to take what you can get, when you can get it. You’re wasting energy we might need later.” He blindly patted the space on the bed next to him. “Come and rest for a little bit.”

She hesitated. She didn’t think he knew how attractive a picture he made, lying on that bed in uniform with his hair curling over his forehead.

“I won’t bite,” he added, opening one eye briefly. 

She sighed and ran her hands down the thighs of her trousers to dry her suddenly sweaty palms. ‘ _There’s no reason to be nervous,’_ she told herself. ‘ _It’s just Marcus._ ’ Except ‘just Marcus’ had come to mean a great many things in the last few months, half of which she wondered if he was even aware of. She thought he might be, when she caught him glancing at her lips from time to time or when he put his hands on her in ways that looked far more innocent than they felt.

She tested the mattress with one hand as she sat down and swung her feet up, taking a moment to adjust the pillow before lying down somewhat stiffly. 

“Breathe,” he murmured. “Relax your body.”

Abby released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She forced her muscles to relax as much as she was able to- she felt like a taut wire, ready to snap.

“When I was a boy,” Marcus said after a moment, startling her with his change of topic, “My mother would tell me stories of what the ground was like before the War.”

She smiled at his attempt to distract her. “So did mine.”

“Not just places in the developed world,” he continued, ”but countries where people still brought their goods to market and worth was dictated by the feel and smell and taste of the wares.” 

“Like Polis,” she said. 

“A hundred years after the end of the world, and people are still the same.” His words hung in the air, comfort and warning in one statement.

Abby stared at the ceiling, wondering for a moment what he’d been like as a small child. She thought she’d caught a glimpse there in the market, his expression open and his near giddiness at the bric a brac for sale in the stalls they passed. The way he inhaled the smells of strange dishes, and turned his face to the sun as he listened to the clamour of barrows and heated exchanges and merchants calling out to passers by. She imagined a little boy at his mother’s knee, dark hair falling into eyes wide with wonder.

“I miss her,” he said softly.

Her heart clenched at the vulnerability in his voice. “She loved you so much, Marcus.”

“I was worse than cold with her that day. I was _cruel_. All she wanted was for me to show up and say a prayer, and I brushed her off. Told her I didn’t remember it.” He frowned. “And then she was gone. I’ll never be able to make up for it.”

Abby turned her head toward him. His face was dry, but he was blinking fiercely. She put her hand on his where it still lay between them on the bed and his fisted hand relaxed slightly at her touch.

“Marcus, look at me.” He turned toward her, and she pretended not to see the tear that leaked out when he did. “You were the light of her life. There is not a single thing you could have done that she wouldn’t forgive. Nothing you could say that would make her love you any less.”

“How can you know that,” he whispered. She took his hand fully in hers, heart breaking for him.

“Because I’m a mother,” she said simply. “And even when I thought Clarke was… lost… I still loved her. When I was angry with her, when I thought she was wrong, when she made me crazy- the choices she’s made here on the ground. There isn’t a single thing that could make me not love her with everything I have.” She squeezed his hand. “And Vera was a much gentler soul than I am. She was proud of you. And she’d be proud of the man you’ve become.”

“You think so?” And the tone of his voice gave her the sudden urge to wrap him up in her arms. But they weren’t ready for that. Not yet.

“I know so. Because _I’m_ proud of you, Marcus. How could she _not_ be?”

He snorted softly in response, and she sighed.

“You planted the Eden tree,” she reminded him, and he looked at her sharply.

“How could you _possibly_ -?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Word gets around, you know that.”

“It was the last thing she asked me to do,” he confessed.

Abby smiled. “You’re a good son, Marcus.”

He laughed shortly. “I was a terrible son.”

“But a good man.”

“Was I?”

She squeezed his hand. “Maybe not in the way people wanted. But in the way you thought they needed. That counts for something.”

Marcus turned back towards the ceiling. “I often wonder if it does, or if I have a whole lifetime to make up for.”

“Of course it counts,” she said lightly, watching his profile. If only he knew how good a man he was.

He turned his faced to her, adjusting his body so they were turned toward each other. “But do _you_ think it counts?” 

He searched her face, and she sensed this question was more heavily weighted than any of the others. Her personal opinion mattered to him, and while she could tell herself it was as a peer and a co-leader and friend, she could see in his face it was more.

“Absolutely,” she breathed. She dared reach out a hand to touch his face, feeling his beard surprisingly soft beneath her fingers. “Marcus Kane, you are the best man I know.” 

The intensity of his gaze and the slight smile on his face made her heart stutter, and she withdrew her hand before this became something they didn’t have time for. Not now, not today. Not with Clarke in danger and a treaty to broker. His smile remained, though, and she smiled back. She couldn’t help but feel they had just taken another step toward each other, toward the inevitable. 

She wondered when that inevitability went from ‘not disagreeable’ to something she was eagerly anticipating.

There was a commotion in the market below, and they came back to themselves. Almost. Marcus sighed as he ran a thumb over the hand that was still in his. 

“We should get some sleep.”

Abby yawned. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” he agreed, closing his eyes. 

Within mere seconds, it seemed, his breathing evened out and his face went slack with sleep. She knew she should close her eyes and follow suit- the Guard weren’t the only ones trained to take sleep where they could get it- but the sight of him before her was too good to give up just yet. Being able to openly admire him at close quarters wasn’t something that came along often, and she was loath to waste an opportunity when it presented itself so sweetly to her.

She let herself look at him, at the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the dusting of white in his beard, the curve of his nose. She let herself study the arch of his brow and the way his long lashes lay against his cheeks, let herself wonder if the hair on his head was as soft as that on his face. She looked until she felt her eyes growing heavy, and when she closed her eyes it was with the ludicrous thought that she was sharing a bed with someone other than her husband for the first time, and that it was with Marcus Kane of all people. She tightened her hand around his, and in his sleep he tightened his in return. 

She would have to make sure, she thought as she finally drifted off, that it wouldn’t be the last.


End file.
